1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a digital TV and, more particularly, to a method and apparatus for automatically reproducing content over a network, in a digital TV.
2. Description of the Related Art
Owing to the increase in the popularity of digital cameras, digital camcorders, personal video recorders (PVRs) or the like and the development of online technology, various types of multimedia content, such as user created content (UCC), amateur music video, TV programs or the like, have been distributed online.
Google has recently acquired YouTube, which is a popular video sharing website and occupies more than 50% of the online video content market. Thus, the amount of online multimedia content has increased and is predicted to keep increasing.
FIG. 1 shows a Web browser displayed on a PC connected to a video content sharing website. Referring to FIG. 1, a user wishing to see certain content selects the content from among many types of video content which are categorized on the Web browser, using a mouse and keyboard, downloads the content, and watches the content via the PC. The user repeats the above operation in order to continuously see plural videos (the so called “PULL method”).
Meanwhile, users want to see Internet content using an Internet protocol (IP) TV, which is an Internet connected digital TV. However, since conventional Internet content is designed to be reproduced through the Web browser displayed on the PC, it is difficult to search for and reproduce content by using the TV that has a control panel or a remote controller instead of a mouse and a keyboard.
In more detail, the conventional method of reproducing Internet content is not suitable for TVs since users can see a broadcast program by turning on the TV and another broadcast program by changing channels of the TV (the so called “PUSH method”).
Furthermore, when users download content from a conventional Internet content providing website and reproduce the content, it takes some time before the content is reproduced, to buffer the content in order to seamlessly reproduce the content, which causes user inconvenience.